Entries tagged with rsl

deelaundry visited over the weekend! We drove to Connecticut to see Robert Sean Leonard in a stripped-down production of Camelot.

We had been braced for terrible and instead were entertained. RSL's English accent was perhaps the weakest part of the evening. Britney Coleman, who apparently once played Bellatrix Lestrange in "A Very Potter Musical," gave a strong Musical Theater performance as Guenevere. Having never seen nor heard Camelot beyond a song or two, Dee and I were both amused by the Gaston-like characterization of Lancelot and this production's choice to include a bare-chested bathing scene. Michael De Souza did a great job with line delivery and body language, perhaps further endeared to my heart by the fact that at times he looked like Anton Yelchin. As for how to describe Mordred (Patrick Andrews) when he appeared in Act Two in full campy glory... He wore sparkly black leggings and was basically Seth Green playing Ramsay Bolton.

Perhaps my favorite part was learning a little bit of the history of the Westport Country Playhouse, which has been putting on shows starring big names since the '40s. They had rows of -- what are they called, not ads, not playbills -- and pieces of the old theater on the first floor. The place just felt wondrously thick with decades of actors and patrons taking a summer breather outside (but not too far outside) New York City for some low-pressure theater. I stared a little too long at a photo of Keir Dullea and Blythe Danner in the play Butterflies are Free.

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Later, Dee suggested we try this show Black Mirror that has been recommended around. We watched the first two episodes of the first season (the prime minister and the pig, and the TV/bikes/game show dystopia). Creative, well-realized, solidly written and acted, and super disturbing, wow. Took days to shake off some of the concepts and images. Rupert Everett's faux-"X Factor" judge in particular induced a surprising visceral fear/attraction response in me. If the camera had lingered on his face for another 15 seconds, I'm positive I would have had nightmares. But in an enjoyable way? I'm looking forward to watching more -- just not before bed.

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Then I whisked down to DC for 48 hours for a work trip. Got to see a handful of dear friends and a former coworker, attended the conference that prompted the trip, and at said conference, eee, had half a drink with Jad Abumrad, co-host of Radiolab! I only flailed at him a little before we engaged in some career-, storytelling- and podcast-related chat. If I'd known he was going to be there I probably could have asked better questions, but it was still a real treat.

1. Having synn for a friend. She waited in yet another line at the SPN con she's attending this weekend to get me Sebastian Roché's autograph on an 8x10 I mailed her with a homemade montage of his late '90s roles on Roar and Odyssey 5, and she took the time to email a description of how he reacted to it. ♥Longinus♥ ♥synn♥

2. Friends in general. This week included a Boston tourism day with alpheratz and seascribe, a small dinner party at a grad school classmate's house, the usual wonderful deep conversation with M. (hereafter disgruntledowl; she got an LJ for Yuletide!), and heckling the latest pair of Project Runway episodes with thedeadparrot.

Next weekend there will be a deelaundry; we're going to see Robert Sean Leonard in Connecticut in his latest play: Camelot.

alpheratz's visit reminded me to get out more to parts of the city I don't usually visit. The South End and the Back Bay segment of Comm Ave are so lovely this time of year.

4. Playing with a few vids. One is an Elf vid for Xmas that I've been wanting to make for years. The others will be Festivids; TBD if assignments or treats. They are among the five-and-counting requests from people that I'd love to make, and there are still a couple of movies to watch before signups close in case they can be added to my offers. Much better than last year at this time.

5. Books to read. One enjoyable SF series: the Young Miles compendium by Bujold, beginning tomorrow, having finished Shards of Honor and Barrayar a week ago and NK Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate on Friday. One guilty pleasure: Vampire Romance 2 by assorted contributors, begun last night. (You may recall an anecdote about volume 1.) The first two stories weren't anything special, but since they were apparently publishable quality, they did make me think optimistic thoughts about generating simple beginning-middle-end ideas for marketable het paranormal romance or erotica short stories: a possible goal in the not-so-distant future. (Though it's mysterious why I think I can write a short story when I can't even finish a "one-shot" fic WIP... maybe because I wouldn't have such personal investment in the short story. TBD.)

My last major summer work project should be done a week from now, and that will be nice for enjoying leisure activities again. Like mulling over festivids fandoms. And reading books.

Actually, I have to read Uprooted before Monday because it came in at the library and you only get 7 days for new books that are in demand. After that, I’d like to try some of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels and find out whether they are as lulling as the good fanfic. And am so looking forward to the release of Ancillary Mercy in October, preceded by a reread of the first two in the series. Sometime during the fall, will get around to The Chronicles of Prydain for book club. Did any of you read it when you were younger?

Not taking work home will also mean more time for moving around. Elle n’est pas très athlétique, mais elle essaie.

1. The autumn gym class schedule was posted and it is disappointing. Alas. I will either try some new classes or find alternatives.

2. Such as those tennis Meetups. Although tennis thoughts are on hold on account of I can’t find my racket/racquet.

3. Badminton club also an appealing option.

4. Could try picking up Irish dance again with the hope that it doesn’t tighten up my hips like last time, but that is $.

It’s tradition to watch at least some Star Trek whenever my mom and I get together. This time she voted for Space Seed. After that, I could only request The Chest Wrath of Khan*, especially since it’s next on the rewatch list with ignazwisdom. Still so much love and admiration for that film. Notes perhaps to follow.

*™ director Nicholas Meyer

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Internet is down at home so I am posting this from work. (Shh.) Replies may be delayed depending on how daunting it seems to type on the phone keyboard.

As previously mentioned, deelaundry and I drove up to NYC this weekend to see Robert Sean Leonard in the play Born Yesterday and do a bit of sightseeing/friend- and family-visiting while we were there.

Back in town, and, having just watched House, back online. Took maybe an hour to catch up on the reading list and open some tabs for later. (Okay, 20 tabs. But 20 isn't bad for six days.) I wish I had the discipline to stay off LiveJournal for most of the week every week; it's so much more efficient. But I know exactly how long that would last, and it's measured in minutes.

Anyway, I had a good trip and got to see an Iggy for part of it as well as a friend of mine from college who's finishing up his doctorate before moving to a cushy job in Bermuda, the bastard. I read a book on the plane (Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto, cleanly written and well-argued but not his best by far). I may or may not have stared at a conference presenter who I already knew was good-looking from the front but had no idea was astounding in profile. OMG, I was sitting there (not-)staring at him and thinking about how he would give Joe Flanigan a run for his money were he ever to appear in a piece of media before fandom. And finally, there was enough work piled up when I got back to the office that I spent the whole day engaged in said work instead of drifting off into a vaguely dissatisfied fugue.

On Saturday I had the most delicious green tea mochi I've ever encountered. I'm usually not into mochi one way or the other, but these were seriously good, fresh and texture-perfect. I wish I'd bought more than one little package because I've had a hard time tracking down a way to order from that manufacturer. Today I picked up a few boxes of green tea mochi ice cream from Trader Joe's, figuring they would substitute, except not only do they not taste as good, they actually taste gross. So now there is an excess of grossness.

In happier news: I have booked my Very First Massage for this weekend. Everyone I know who's had them has sworn by them, which is promising. Plus, I love back rubs, and the thought of someone putting their hands on me with the intention of making me feel nice is indeed nice. It's the closest thing to sex in my foreseeable future. I mean, happy ending jokes aside, massage seems like the best available approximation to safe, accredited, legal prostitution. [/obvious] [/TMI]

Okay, it's taken way too long to write this. Good to hear all your LJ-post-voices again. Now off to do something useful.

Then I had breakfast and checked my f-list, and right at the top, daasgrrl had posted about RSL. *makes spooky noises*

There was also the part with my high school creative writing teacher and eluding an assassin in a Japanese restaurant with no power, and Sunday night's was about starring in a play and hanging out in a limo afterwards with queenzulu who was also Eliza Dushku. And a parade in lower Manhattan that involved a dump truck navigating narrow, hilly streets, and a bunch of schoolboys in blue thrift store-acquired school uniforms.

I don't know. These are the most interesting things that haven't happened to me lately. Life and writing have been frustrating. At least there is Comment on Neglected Fics Week (*nudge nudge*) and House tonight.

1. List 5 celebrities you would have sex with without even asking questions.2. Put all of them IN ORDER of your lust for them (5 - 1, 1 is the hottest).3. Say which movie/show/thing it was that hooked you.4. Supply photos for said people.5. Tag five people!

As a consolation prize for those of us who didn't attend the closing performance of Company on Sunday (two days after I went!) where Robert Sean Leonard and his fiancée were in the audience*, here is a four-page interview from Entertainment Weekly about what he's up to during a summer off from filming House, besides not doing any plays: A Summer Away from the House (7/3/07).

*sob

Highlights include:

RSL: I'm the guy who's always telling [House] what he's doing wrong. I feel a little bit like the frustrated wife or something. But these two guys are very mysterious to me, their relationship is very weird. Maybe that's one of the reasons it works. I like Hugh a lot ,and I love what he does on the show. I feel quite peripheral to it sometimes, and that might be another reason it works. I just come in and check things out every few scenes.

EW: Now that you have seven weeks off, what are you going to do?RSL: I'm going to meet my friend Craig, go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I'm so excited.

RSL: This play Tom Stoppard wrote, Coast of Utopia, I'd seen it in London three years ago, and I just knew I was gonna do it. And when I did House, one of the things I thought about was, damn it, Utopia's gonna happen. At some point Lincoln Center's gonna do it, and I'm gonna be tied [to House]. And that's what happened. I had my Neil Diamond moment of sitting on the beach with a tear in my eye. I went to see it and saw Billy Crudup and Ethan and Martha Plimpton, and for me that was like...it's like when you're watching the Yankees, and Andy Pettitte's shoulder's out, that look in his eye when he's seeing them winning or losing, that's how I felt.

RSL: It's great. You get the New York Times, you get on a bus, you go all the way uptown, cross over, and come all the way back. I love it. I find it really lulling, I don't know why.

* Thank you to everyone who responded to my last post about fannish grad programs. Advice is still most welcome.

* Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert has died. Man. :( I grew up on that show, settling in with my dad to watch him make glue out of milk curds, talk about the colors different chemicals make as they burn in fireworks, fill a jar to the tippy-top with ice water to show his young volunteer that water loses volume when it melts, demonstrate peristalsis by having kids swallow pieces of apple while they stood on their heads, take a piece of string to a globe to show how flight paths shorten by curving up near the North pole, lift a heavy can on a pendulum up to his chin and let it go and not flinch as it swung back because he knew it wouldn't reach the same height, shake a bunch of people's hands after he dusted his own with fluorescent powder and then wait a few minutes while they all fidgeted during a meeting and then turn on a black light to show how easily germs spread... And then afterwards, we'd often duplicate his experiments. Yeah, many happy memories. I loved his computer's black keyboard with white letters, too; I thought of it when I got my first IBM laptop years later.

* Rifling through the folder of one of my clients, whose plastic surgery practice is based in Montana, I found an email from her to one of our graphic designers describing what kind of stock photos she wanted on her website. That in itself isn't unusual—but one of her requests was "no gay cowboys."

* fallen_arazil, thank you again for that LJ gift certificate back in December! It's become the gift that keeps on giving; half a year later, I've used it to extend my LJ paid time by two months. ♥

* Sporadic kidney pain, yay! Well, the best guess so far is kidney; am supposed to get yet more test results tomorrow. Since it started last Sunday I've been treated to a CT scan and an abdominal ultrasound and lots of pokey tests and got to miss a couple of days of work and everything. Aside from the, ah, sporadic kidney pain, it's actually been fun. Getting to experience a CT was enjoyable (and fitting that it happened on a Tuesday; no MRI-of-DOOM complications*, happily), and, at the risk of TMI, I quite enjoyed the ultrasound this morning. I'm very sensitive to touch—I detest being touched by people I don't like or have just met, and relish even the most incidental touches from people I do like—synn and thewlisian_afer know what I'm talking about—and have been starved for it for a long time. The technician pressing her hand and the handpiece over warm gel just under my ribs and on my side in slow sweeps for 20 minutes was oddly comforting.

On another note entirely, how sad is it that while I waited for confirmation that I could leave, I checked out the brand of lubricant on the counter (Surgilube) and made a mental note to have House steal that from the clinic in a fic?

* ETA: Correction: Now with MRI in the future, too!

* Fruit! (No, not you.) I went to a local year-round farm stand/garden center/petting zoo (former = original purpose, latter = income) Sunday morning and picked up lots of fresh produce, and my sister and I made a fruit salad that we're still eating our way through. Strawberries and peaches and nectarines and plums and grapes and canteloupe—and, not in the mix, string beans and tomatoes and peas and giant red leaf lettuce and sweet onions and corn. These are some of the joys of summer for we-who-do-not-like-the-heat (-and-don't-get-summers-off).

* RSL presenting at the Tony Awards this past Sunday night = yay. All unkempt hair and awkward smile and almost, almost brilliant speech. There were pictures of him and Gaby and him alone backstage at the pre-show over at house_daily for those of you who care but don't watch that community.

* Last of the Mohicans was on AMC Saturday night. I didn't see that movie until a couple of years ago, when I rented it because Sebastian Roché (my favorite actor no-one's ever heard of) was supposed to be in it, only it turned out he'd been cut. I was expecting to hate it, as I expect to hate all epic romances with heartthrob lead actors such as Daniel Day-Lewis or Brad Pitt, but I absolutely loved—and still love, as Saturday's viewing proved—the climactic Appalachian clifftop scene with Magua and Alice. His face, his surprised respect. Her serenity. The music. The scenery. Chingachgook's and Hawkeye's and Cora's reactions. Everything. Mm.

While stuck in traffic last Sunday night coming home from michelle_nine's wedding (!!), I played some of the more intimate boy/boy scenes in The Short History of a Prince for synn. In the context of other roles he has played, it prompted her to ask after RSL's sexual orientation, which got us talking about whether one can or should speculate on an actor's orientation based on the parts (s)he takes and conviction with which (s)he portrays his/her characters, and whether the actor's previous roles influence a viewer's/auditor's interpretation of a current one.

I admit that since RSL read Walter so convincingly in Short History and infuses so much subtext into (House/)Wilson, among other things, it was easier to consider the possible homosexual subtext in the months True Son spends with Half Arrow in the woods, or the scenes in which the slightly older translator/guard Del Hardy shares his bed. It also raises the question of whether RSL chose to read The Light in the Forest in part because of the boy's sexual ambiguity, or if he read it in such a way to emphasize that ambiguity, or if it's all a big contrived coincidence and I should shut up now.

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Curious about what sort of scholarship has been done on the book, I Google-Scholared it and found an excellent article from the Journal of American Popular Culture by Jeffery P. Dennis called "The Light in the Forest Is Love: Cold War Masculinity and the Disney Adventure Boys" (2004). Dennis writes about how in the 1940s and '50s, the Disney company, reacting to a post-WWII emphasis in America on heterosexual masculinity, shifted traditional cinematic depictions of adventurous male adolescence from pairs of boys enjoying intimate homoromantic bonds and ignoring girls—in essence, buddy films with young protagonists—to individual boys pining for or being seduced by girls while restricting relationships with other males to carefully-distant friendships or rivalries, with the filmmakers relegating homosexual behavior to quirky side characters or creepy/threatening villains. One of Dennis' examples is the film version of The Light in the Forest, which Disney apparently adapted in 1958 and completely changed around so Johnny falls for a coy servant girl and turns his back on his (primitive/homosexual) Indian heritage to be with her.

It's an easy and fascinating read, especially if you're interested in film, queering texts and the buddy genre. The Light in the Forest stuff is mostly discussed in the James MacArthur section if you want to skip down, but I really recommend reading the whole thing.

What struck me the most about this little exercise—book, article, movie—is how much Disney, perhaps as much as or more than Hollywood in general, has shaped my expectations of how stories are told. Richter didn't sink into predictable plots or contrived endings; the movie did. I didn't realize where those expectations came from until Dennis pointed out what was going on and I saw how Disney twisted Richter's story into what we expect from a mainstream narrative today.

I'd never read anything else by Jane Hamilton, so it was hard to tell whether I disliked her writing or just this particular novel. Since RSL did another audio book of hers, The Short History of a Prince, I borrowed that one from the library next to find out. An excellent, excellent decision.

The audio book cover said this was abridged. As the four cassettes passed all too quickly, I kept wishing Disobedience had been abridged instead of this one. Here's the funny thing: turns out Disobedience was abridged. Good God. I can only imagine what passages describing the affair in even greater detail were left out—unless the editors chopped the Henry-centric stuff and left Liza38's in, thinking they were doing us a favor. I don't want to read it and find out. But I may one day check out the paperback version of The Short History of a Prince to see if it contains any more treats.

I was prepared to not like this movie. I did not really want to like this movie. I put it in the DVD player and kept my hand on the remote, ready to fast-forward from meager RSL scene to meager RSL scene. But I never used it. Well, not till the end, and that was to skip back and watch parts of it again. And again.

There has been some tux-squeeage in the fandom this week following "All In"; therefore I am now procrastinating on four important tasks by hard-coding a table full of RSL photos for you so we can discuss what we find sexy in men's formal wear, if by "men" we mean "Wilson" and by "formal wear" we mean "suits as seen in two episodes." *wistful sigh* It's like the old days of putting off schoolwork and thinking about Buffy or, more recently, HP fanfic.

I realize I've been doing quite a few posts on House of late. There are many reasons behind it which I will spare you. Suffice it to say that it's been years since I was this into a show or book or what-have-you, and I am just so thrilled to love something again that I'm going to let myself revel in it. To those of you who don't watch (or watch by proxy), and I know that's about half of you, all I can say is I hope you like the House-related posts anyway and I promise there will still be plenty of other stuff to talk about.